I’m going to need you to step away from the keyboard, sir.

Away from writing much of the day as I was out … reading my writing.

Are you the type of writer who just wants to create words all day? Type and ponder and create and edit and have coffee. It’s a wonderful thing. It’s lovely, really.

Snap out of that mental Disneyland, Paco. It’s time to go from a writer to a Writer.

Do you want to write all day or read what you wrote to an audience? [Mill Valley, California]

Writing, creating and hitting publish is part of the package, for certain. But then there’s promotion. Do you hate promotion? Are you a hermit writer with minimal UV ray exposure? Do you shy away from human contact (of the living skin and bones variety)? That’s going to be fun for a while, but then you’re going to have to head back to your day job at the bank because that’s not going to cut it if you want to be a Writer.

Other writers don’t want to promote their work, sell their books or have anyone read anything they wrote. That’s also completely respectable.

I suppose it helps to get those folks out of the way. Now that we’ve cleared the room, it’s time to ask whoever is left standing: do you have it in you? I’m not talking about talent, I’m talking about:

Passion

Perseverance

Patience

Want to hear about those three things in more depth? Check out Ann Rea’s interview with Bradley Charbonneau on “Making Art Making Money.” If you don’t have all of those three things, you should go searching for them. Oh, by the way, they’re not in the Passion aisle at Target. Do you know where to find them? It’s that terrible answer I love so much: it’s both easy and hard. They’re all within you, you just have to tease them out.

It’s kinda that simple.

P.S. You know what passion is? Passion is that I CAN’T WAIT to see what happens to our heroes tomorrow in chapter 3.
P.P.S. If you’re in the boat and you’re not rowing, kindly jump overboard as you’re taking up space, weighing things down and there’s someone else who will eagerly take your spot. Just sayin’.